SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the when-the-First-Amendment-isn't-clear-enough dept.
On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent.
It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.
In other cases — as with conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California, Berkeley last week — the event is called off.
Now, a handful of states, including Illinois, Tennessee, Colorado and Arizona, have passed or introduced legislation designed to prevent these incidents from happening. The bills differ from state to state, but they're generally based on a model written by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Arizona.
The model bill would require public universities to remain neutral on political issues, prevent them from disinviting speakers, and impose penalties for students and others who interfere with these speakers.
The author of the model bill argues that the neutrality stipulation is necessary for public institutions funded by tax dollars, "who shouldn't be forced to subsidize speech that they disagree with." In response to the legislation, a Democratic North Carolina legislator criticized the bill as an unnecessary "regulation of a constitutional right." The story also mentions that "Critics say this kind of legislation could hinder a university's ability to regulate hate speech on campus," but the bill author responds that hate speech is "not well-defined in the law."
Although the proposed legislation varies by state, the model bill linked above recommends a number of initiatives, from clear campus policies on protecting free speech to severe disciplinary actions for students who interfere with that right. Perhaps the strongest section of the model bill would require that "Any student who has twice been found responsible for infringing the expressive rights of others will be suspended for a minimum of one year, or expelled" (Section 1.9).
In other free speech news, USA Today reports that the FCC is launching an investigation into an "obscene" joke by Stephen Colbert concerning Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which caused a Twitter firestorm and led to a trending #FireColbert hashtag. While the joke was sexually explicit, the offensive word was bleeped in broadcast. CNN has argued that the FCC is merely doing its job in investigating "a number" of complaints, but Slate notes the high legal threshold that would be necessary for a fine in this case, given the late hour of the broadcast and the three-pronged test for obscenity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @02:34AM (1 child)
You should really take a long hard look at what you are opposing. The only part of the pendulum that has swung too far is PC culture which has taught generations of kids to be too sensitive and censor a boat load of words. But all things considered that is far from the worst excess and hasn't been formalized in any actual legislation. I'll take that swing of the pendulum any day over what nationalist fear-mongering conservatives do when they have power. Their choices directly ruin lives, imprison people, and generally make the world a worse place.
Maybe there is a reason humanity has gotten more liberal over time? Oh right, cause liberalism (AKA freedom lovers) are the ones who strive for humanity's more noble traits. I'm sure there are some counter examples, but don't kid yourself frojack. You are on the side of ignorance and fear, you just want everyone to bend over for your snowflake feelings because transgender people make you uncomfortable, other cultures make you uncomfortable, and you think the US should just be a normal white picket fence country.
Tell me, what exactly is the pendulum doing now? How is it swinging back in your favor? How exactly is Trump's MAGA working? Can you articulate anything coherent beyond angry rebuttals? Can your ideas stand up to critical analysis and the actual facts?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 08 2017, @01:35PM
The only part of the pendulum that has swung too far is PC culture which has taught generations of kids to be too sensitive and censor a boat load of words.
That's like saying the only part of German culture that "swung too far" in the 1930s were the Nazis. Sometimes one dominant part is all that is needed to thoroughly corrupt a culture. PC culture by itself warps everything, including how we think - the basis of any education.
However, I think we'll find that there's a lot more such problems at colleges than just that. For example, I can think of various utopian ideologies that still have root in college campuses (particularly, Marxism), the multi-cultural animal farm where all cultures and ethnicities are equal, but some are more equal than others, the unlawful persecution without due process of people accused of rape, and a general entitlement mentality that demands things without feeling the need to provide anything in exchange.